Time for Warriors to walk the walk

Warriors

Updated 4:04 pm, Thursday, September 27, 2012

Warriors coach Mark Jackson managed to keep a collection of Bay Area media riveted for almost an hour Wednesday, speaking on wide-ranging topics concerning the upcoming season without making the same grandiose promise he had offered a year ago.

Just before his rookie coaching campaign, Jackson guaranteed the Warriors would make the playoffs for the first time since 2007. Instead, they went 23-43, finishing 13 games out of playoff position and only two games ahead of the West's worst team, New Orleans.

Any promises this season?

"I'm not going to say it," Jackson said. "It's not that I don't believe it. But, ultimately, there comes a point where it's enough of the talking. Go out and do it."

The Warriors have had a go-out-and-do-it offseason, having surgeries performed on Andrew Bogut, Stephen Curry and David Lee; drafting three expected rotation players, trading for Jarrett Jack and signing Carl Landry and Brandon Rush.

Jackson repeatedly said that 14 of the 15 players who were on the roster at the time - they signed free agents Carlon Brown, Lance Goulbourne, Rick Jackson and Tarence Kinsey later in the day - have been working out together at the team's downtown Oakland facility since Labor Day. The one player who hasn't arrived is center Andris Biedrins, who regularly trains solo in Santa Barbara at this time of year.

"Any player who's going into any season is going to sound excited and be optimistic about what their team can do, but I really believe in the roster that management and ownership have put together," said Curry, whose ankle was medically cleared for full contact last week. "We're as deep and as talented a team as we've been since I've been here, and it's up to the players and coaches to go out and make it happen."

That's part of the reason Jackson isn't repeating his promise. He said his rookie boldness was an attempt to change the culture and expectations of the franchise.

He feels it worked, and now the team is talented enough to back up his talk.